Sunday, April 28, 2013

My sweet little ones love to play "I have/who has" games and so do I. We play them at circle time or if we have a few minutes to kill at the end of the day {rare}. It is an easy and quick way for me to assess which of my learners have mastered certain concepts and which ones need more practice. I use these games with colors, shapes, numbers, and abc's. I have a free color I have/who has game for you as a thank you for finding my blog. Enjoy!

We started off the week learning about things that can be recycled vs. things that cannot. We also sorted our recyclable items by type. Our little learners did a great job doing both.

We made these by combining shaving cream and liquid watercolors of blue and green. Our sweeties then took a popsicle stick and swirled all together. They placed their paper on top. After about 5 minutes the shaving cream and paint mixture was scraped off. Afterwards, the Earth was glued on a piece of construction paper. Everyone picked their color of hearts and glued around their Earth art.

Everyone picked what type of flower they wanted to plant and put their seeds in their own cups. We added water and placed them on the window sill. Hopefully, (fingers crossed) the seeds will sprout soon!

We all made Earth Day Promises to help keep our Earth clean and well cared for. Everyone took their promise very seriously.

The weather was FINALLY nice enough on Thursday, so we went outside to pull weeds and plant flowers.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

First let me say, I love, love, love doing a nursery rhyme unit. It's very rewarding to hear sweet little ones reciting the rhymes they learned in class. Many of my students were not very familiar with nursery rhymes, so it was fun introducing them to the magic of the rhyme.

After reciting 'Jack Be Nimble', the little learners had to order the candlesticks from smallest to biggest. Afterward, we all recited the rhyme inserting the name of the sweetie instead of 'Jack' as they jumped over the candlesticks. It was such fun.

Every day we did an art/learning project that incorporated a particular nursery rhyme. At the end of the week, we put them all together for a take home book.

Here are my sweet little ones reading their take home book, once it was all put together. The sound of their voices reciting the rhymes was music to my ears! Since then, I have heard back from several parents telling me how much they love the book. :)

Sunday, April 21, 2013

I ended up making another Earth Day activity for my sweet learners today and wanted to share it with anyone looking for some last minute ideas. This is another sorting activity, but this time the sweeties have to sort by items that can be recycled and items that have to be thrown away. Enjoy!

My little ones have made these car air fresheners for Mother's Day before and take such pride in the gift they have for their first loves! I buy the stiffened felt pieces at craft stores and use Ellison dies to cut out various shapes. Each sweetie picks the color and shape they want to give to mom. I also have a couple different fragrances of essential oils to choose from. Eye droppers are used to add oil onto the shape to make it an air freshener. This adds a bonus fine motor element :) Hole punch at the top and add ribbon or yarn, so it can be hung from the rearview mirror. Put the air freshener into a baggie. Either add the poem to the baggie or hole punch and add it to the ribbon. It is easy-peasy and everyone loves it!

My favorite memory from college....hmmm, that is hard. There are so many! Probably the friendships between my roommates and co-workers at the local pizza place that are still strong today.

YELLOW

My favorite sports team would have to be the Missouri Tigers

GREEN

My favorite fast food place would have to be Backyard Burger. In addition to burgers, they have a yummy strawberry walnut chicken salad, veggie burgers, waffle fries, and Sobe Lean. What else could you ask for?

PURPLE

Wild Card

I have a part-time job at Anthropologie. I love that store! I have worked part-time there for seven years. Sometimes I am so tired and I think I should quit, but It is a great company to work for and I can't give it up!

I teach Pre-K and you know what they say...."out of the mouth of babes"! My para and I have several good laughs a day listening to all the funny comments of our sweeties. One of the cutest and funniest stories happened awhile back. It involved three year olds that received speech therapy. A was coloring a picture green and saying "peen, peen, peen, I love the color peen" M looked at A and in a disgusted tone said, "It's deen, not peen"! Love it... :) Have a good day!

Monday, April 15, 2013

I am excited to be participating in my first Manic Monday! To celebrate I am giving away my Numbers, 10 Frames, and Tally Marks from 1-20 Freebie. Little ones match the number, number word, ten frame and tally marks that correspond. Choose a few numbers and play like 'memory' or simply have students match into sets. There is also a recording sheet to use, if desired. If you download, I would love you to leave a comment. Follow my blog to find out about more freebies. :)

Friday, April 12, 2013

Our class just finished up a week of pizza activities. We had such fun. Check out the previous post about Pete's a Pizza and the amazing language activity to go along with the book. As a thank you for finding my blog, I would like to give away my Pizza Mini Math Pack. It contains sorting pizzas by size, offered in both color and black and white. I have several sizes to choose from, so you can differentiate for the needs of your learner. The Pizza Pack also contains a 10 frame matching game from 1-9. You could also use the numbers to add and/or subtract toppings to pizza.

Here are my little learners working on the size sort. Each sweetie had a different set to sort, depending on their skill level.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

....And so were my little ones! Oh.my.goodness, what fun they had! I am so, so lucky to work with the BEST SLP. She has such great language activities and the kids absolutely adore her. She came to class Tuesday, and after reading Pete's a Pizza, she made everyone into a pizza These were the items used:

First, you knead the dough.

Then, you have to stretch it.

Spray some oil (it's really water) to keep it from sticking.

Dust it with flour (it's really powder).

Add tomatoes (poker chips) and cheese (shredded paper)...

Last, add the pepperoni, put it in the oven to bake, and when it's done......

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Last year was our first year to do a Cinco de Mayo theme. It was so much fun. I kept thinking, "why hadn't we done this before?" I did find it a bit difficult to find a lot of materials already made for the level of my students so I created some to use during circle, learning, and art times. We ended our new learning with a Cinco de Mayo Celebration, complete with a piñata. Our class has some ELL students with a Mexican heritage. The parents were kind enough to send in some items from Mexico to share with the class. We introduced our little learners to colors in Spanish, as well as shapes and counting, but we mainly focused on reinforcing skills with a Mexican flair. We read both fiction and non-fiction books about Mexico and Cinco de Mayo, in particular. I think one of my favorite things about the whole experience was that our ELL sweeties took the lead role with teaching the others about their language and heritage. Here are a few pictures of our fiesta fun!

If you are interested in the Cinco de Mayo Celebration Pack, it is available at my Tpt and Teacher's Notebooks stores. Here is what is included: A Ninos Con Sarape Glyph, Colors of Cinco de Mayo emergent readers, color sorting activity of sombreros and pom poms, I have/Who has shapes game, blank I have/Who has game to play however you choose, Where Is the Sombrero preposition emergent reader, 10 frames activity-matching numbers and 10 frames from 1-20, two 10 frames I have/Who has games (one from 1-10 and one from 1-20), patterning pages, sombrero sort by size activities, Spanish colors emergent reader, ordinal numbers, and non-standard maraca measuring. Activities are offered both in color and black and white so you can choose what works best for your needs.

Here is a patterning freebie from my Cinco de Mayo Early Learning Fiesta Fun Pack.

About Me

I teach 3 to 5 year olds in a blended Title One/Special Education classroom. I am blessed to have a job that I absolutely love. My paraprofessional, Valerie, is amazing. Together, we have so much fun teaching our preschool wonders!